It’s a dark time for Alberta energy but there’s reason to hope. Out of despair and anger, out of getting shafted on oil prices and getting schooled by anti-oil propagandists, we’re coming together in a way that will lead to success.

On the left, the governing NDP has dropped the last shreds of its old naive anti-pipeline politics. On the right, both oil industry and conservative political leaders have generally backed away from their own counterproductive resistance to working with Indigenous communities and from having higher environmental standards.

As a result, Alberta is on the war path like it hasn’t been in decades.

Yes, the governing NDP and the opposition UCP completely disagree on whether or not a carbon tax is needed and effective. And, yes, the UCP is pushing a more aggressive battle campaign overall.

But both left and right agree on the need to a) counteract the propaganda efforts of anti-pipeline activists, b) push the federal government to axe or greatly alter Bill C-69, its proposed assessment program for new mining, oil and gas and pipeline projects, c) end the B.C. northwest coast tanker ban, and d) convince Canadian governments to move away from shipping in dictator oil on tankers.

If you doubt my assessment here’s what I heard Thursday at the New West energy conference in downtown Calgary, a meeting of Alberta’s oil and gas leaders, this one-two punch from UCP Leader Jason Kenney and NDP Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron Bilous.

Kenney is a natural born fighter and set the tone for the event, speaking first and proclaiming: “It is time we stop being passive, defensive and apologetic. It is time we use all of the political and economic levers at our disposal.”

Here’s Kenney’s take on the campaign by major U.S. donors to fund Canadian environmental groups to defame the oilsands: “I believe that all of those developments that have been so injurious to this province’s prosperity were in part the result of a highly successful, deliberate, well organized and hugely well-funded campaign of defamation that for at least the past decade has sought to defame the production of Canadian energy based on a massive double standard not applied to other energy producers.”

Far from disagreeing with Kenney, Bilous was largely in agreement: “I think there’s been a small group of people and voices that have really hijacked the narrative and have painted a picture that is untrue as far as our energy system, our producers.”

Here’s Kenney on the over-regulation of the oil industry, which he argues will be made worse by Bill C-69: “The plan is for more and more and more regulation including the voracious Bill C-69, what I call the ‘no more pipelines’ act.”

And Bilous: “That bill is incredibly flawed and we have been saying to the federal government that you need to make significant changes to this bill or we’re going to doom our energy sector … Our frustration is that we are the best in the world when it comes to environmental standards.”

Kenney is against the federal ban on oil tankers off the northwest coast of B.C.

So is Bilous, who says: “Our frustration with the federal government is you can’t have a double standard … You cannot advocate for LNG, which will have a tanker increase of 177 per cent, while criticizing Trans Mountain, which increases tanker traffic by 14 per cent … Alberta is not landlocked. Alberta is part of a country that has more coast line than any other country in the world. The challenge is that we have to start acting like a country.”

Finally, here is Kenney on the need for Canadian oil as opposed to dictator oil: “Either we abandon world energy markets to the world’s worst regimes, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this dictatorship in Iran, the catastrophic dictatorship in Venezuela, either we allow them to dominate global energy markets or with determination we move forward on the offensive, unapologetically, to do everything possible to get our Canadian energy to global markets.”

And Bilous: “From the Alberta point of view it’s quite frustrating that other provinces across this country are importing their resources from either petro-dictatorships or countries that have low to no standards whatsoever, when we have real opportunities to supply our own country with energy that we know is produced most responsibly.”

Again, there’s not agreement on everything, including carbon taxes, deregulation, and tactics. But we’re speaking as one most often now. That kind of unity will make for much more progress than the old division.

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